Examination of Witnesses (Questions 540
- 549)
WEDNESDAY 27 JANUARY 2010 (afternoon)
MS MARIANNE
BIRKBY, MS
PAULINE PRESTON,
MR IMITAZ
MOHAMED AND
MS JENNY
HAWKES
Q540 Dr Whitehead:
Then, after that had taken place and after the land had been purchased,
those sites were placed within the NPS document. That is your
understanding, is it?
Ms Hawkes: Yes.
Q541 Sir Robert Smith:
From your understanding of the options, were the options subject
to successful designation by the NPS?
Mr Mohamed: The options themselves
were signed about the end of October, beginning of November. That
would indicate that RWE were in negotiations previous to this—this
would be 2008—and, specifically, the options relate to buying
the site on 30 October 2009 for a specific sum. This is after
the SSA process. In fact, if you look at it, you have created
a process where a major company got in at the first level for
an option price of £25,000. That is fact.
Q542 Dr Whitehead:
That is on the whole site?
Mr Mohamed: No, that was on Layriggs
Farm. The site, we were told, was initially 180 acres. That was
the option for that site.
Ms Preston: To clarify that, we
still do not know today, once the site was reconfigured to 320
acres, if that land has actually been purchased or not.
Mr Mohamed: There is a technical
problem. We have lived there for 11 months and we still cannot
find out the day the site was nominated. It might indicate something,
I do not know, but we asked DECC on Saturday; we cannot get an
answer on the record.
Q543 Dr Whitehead:
My understanding is, therefore, that there was an option on the
180-acre site.
Mr Mohamed: Yes.
Q544 Dr Whitehead:
Presumably there is a purchase price per acre subsequent to that
option?
Mr Mohamed: Yes. I can give you
the purchase price, if you want, or I can send it to you.
Q545 Dr Whitehead:
The Committee would be very grateful to receive that.
Ms Hawkes: Certainly RWE at Braystones
had already purchased an option to buy three farms and had undertaken
exploratory drilling on those farms prior to the announcement.
Q546 Dr Whitehead:
Ms Birkby, just for my information, from what process does the
emission of hydrofluoro carbons stem on the Sellafield site?
Ms Birkby: I think it stems from
the reprocessing of waste.
Q547 Dr Whitehead:
Your understanding is that those emissions have not been recorded
within the emissions of the site prior to your group obtaining
information?
Ms Birkby: They have quadrupled
anyway. The reprocessing seems to be stepping up a gear and creating
more liquid waste, despite the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate
saying that the high-level liquid waste tanks at Sellafield are
in a critical state and should be looked at immediately—this
was last year—and that has not happened. It just seems that
this whole process is promoting new build at a time when there
are cutbacks on the safety aspects of Sellafield, and really we
would like the money to be spent on looking after the existing
waste as safely as possible to ensure the future viability of
Cumbria.
Q548 Charles Hendry:
Are you not bringing together two separate issues there? There
is a reprocessing facility, which is a very modern facility, and
separately there are the old waste tanks, which are appalling,
but that is not the reprocessing facility.
Ms Birkby: No. Cumbria County
Council itself has actually questioned the continued reprocessing,
while the NDA are saying that they are going to reduce the amount
of waste in the high-level waste tanks, but the process of reprocessing
creates more liquid wastes, and so Cumbria County Council themselves
have questioned this. How can you be reducing the wastes and carrying
on reprocessing, which has never been commercially viable.
Ms Hawkes: It is not modern.
Ms Birkby: This is what Duncan
was writing about, that was his thing, doing the reprocessing,
and he was very concerned, obviously. He was under Sellafield's
own compensation scheme for radiation-linked diseases and he is
not around any more.
Q549 Dr Whitehead:
Thank you very much, Ms Birkby, Ms Hawkes, Mr Mohamed and Ms Preston.
It is the first poem we have had submitted to this Committee in
evidence!
Ms Birkby: Excellent.
Dr Whitehead: Thank you very much.
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